Costa grew to be the largest player in horticulture, after significant American investment in 2011. Costa produces truss tomatoes and berries in greenhouses, bananas, citrus, avocados, grapes and mushrooms.

Costa chief executive Harry Debney says his company would like greater transparency, particularly for mushroom levies he pays and argues his company could do a better job than the Mushroom Growers Association.

"We’re (Costa) around 40 per cent of the industry, we pay around $800,000 a year in a mushroom spawn levy, and the Peak Industry Body is currently lobbying the agriculture minister to double that levy, so potentially we could be footing a bill of $1.6 million.

"Now given 75 per cent of the levy should be spent on marketing, we have failed to obtain from the AMGA (Mushroom Growers) any effective cost benefit analysis, the money currently spent on marketing and we seriously disagree that they’re doing much to foster the growth.

"Now we are strong supporters to grow that business or category, but we think we spend more effectively in our own terms, our own funds, within our business, and we’re disadvantaged by a largely wasted effort by AMGA."

Greg Seymour, of Mushroom Growers Association, says they’ve used the funds effectively, and the levies pre-date Costa’s arrival as the largest mushroom producer in Australia.

"Oh absolutely, it’s gone way back.

"When records were first collected in 1978, the industry was 6,000 tonnes, and today it’s 65,000 tonnes. Per capita consumption was 600 grams. Today it’s 3.2 kilos a head per year."

Mr Seymour says that growth is due to the efforts of marketing by the AMGA.

"If you look at the situation, in 1978 there was an anti-dumping case brought against Korean imports, when it was 95 per cent canned mushrooms.

"That dumping case failed, so the industry said 'we have to convert Australians to fresh mushroom consumers'.

"Now it’s 95 per cent fresh mushrooms, (with) no one else doing that in the market place except the Mushroom Growers Association to turn that around."

Another mushroom grower, White Prince, in its submission agrees that the AMGA is doing a good job.

White Prince is the second largest mushroom producer, and has been a family-based business in the Hawkesbury District of NSW for 55 years.

It says the levies spent on R&D and marketing have returned a value of 11:1 Return on Investment, according to figures in ACIL Allen's report.

Membership of Horticulture Australia Ltd

Currently only the 43 Peak Industry Bodies, for example, the Banana Growers Council and Mushroom Growers Association, can be members of Horticulture Australia Limited, not individual growers.

Costa says that should change, to allow for big players who are paying more levies to have a greater representation.

"At the moment, they (PIBs) control HAL and the way it’s constituted, and sadly, there are no producer representatives directly on the HAL board.

"We advocate there should be direct producer representation to give a balance, because some of those PIBs are not representative. We think they’re bureaucratic enterprises.

"I want to qualify that, there are some very good PIBs – they take cognisance of the major contributors to industry success, and take advice. There are others that are really wasting taxpayers’ money and individual levy payers' money.”

Costa says that unless there is meaningful reform with horticulture, all the levies should become voluntary.

The report by ACIL Allen will be submitted to Horticulture Australia Limited in April.